DEGREES OF SEPARATION: New polling shows that after only five days of campaigning for president, Vice President Kamala Harris is trailing Donald Trump within the margin for error in five crucial states and is tied in one of them.

  In polling by Emerson College and The Hill, Trump leads in Michigan 46 percent to 45, and by two in Georgia. He’s ahead by two points in Pennsylvania and tied with Harris at 47 percent in Wisconsin. Trump leads by five percentage points in Arizona. The margin for error in all states is three percent or more.

  “Harris has recovered a portion of the vote for the Democrats on the presidential ticket since the fallout after the June 27 debate,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a press release. “Harris’s numbers now reflect similar support levels to those of Biden back in March.” 

  He said, “Young voters have shifted toward Harris: Her support increased by 16 points in Arizona, eight in Georgia, five in Michigan, 11 in Pennsylvania, and one in Wisconsin since earlier polling this month.”

THE LITTER BOX: Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance is trying to dig himself out of comments he made in 2021 saying that top Democrats like Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and A.O.C. were “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

  Buttigieg has adopted children and Harris has stepchildren she helped raise.

  In an interview with Megyn Kelly on her podcast Vance said, “Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I’ve got nothing against cats.” Oh, purrfect.

  The country is just getting to know Vance and his history. He claims to be pro-family and told Kelly, “The simple point that I made is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way.”

  Vance proposed in a 2021 speech that parents should have more voting power than people without children. “Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children,” he said. “When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power — you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic — than people who don’t have kids.”

FIVE RINGS:  American swimmer Katie Ledecky swims after her first gold medal today in the women’s 400 meter freestyle at the Paris Olympics.

  Americans won their first medals as divers Sarah Bacon and Kassidy Cook took second place in the women’s synchronized 3-meter springboard event

  Sabotage of the French train system failed to put a damper on the opening ceremonies and neither did pouring rain. The traditional parade of nations … the passing of national Olympic teams … took place on the River Seine as the athletes on boats and barges waved to cheering crowds.

 Eighty-five boats carried 6,800 athletes, many of them draped in plastic rainwear. Moulin Rouge dancers and acrobats were part of the show. The festivities included a rain-soaked fashion show on a bridge over the river.

  It was a colorful spectacle and The Washington Post said Paris “stuck the landing.”

   And in one offbeat moment, American rapper Snoop Dogg, wearing a white track suit and gold sneakers, carried the Olympic torch for one leg on the way to lighting the flame … he’s not known for athletics but NBC has hired him to attract viewers to their coverage of the games.

  The attack on the train system is still a mystery. Fires were set in vital cable tubes that carried signaling. Who did it and why is unknown, but the opening ceremonies were an inviting target for terrorism and it was carried off in grand style without incident.

BUSTED: It turns out that one of Mexico’s biggest drug lords was tricked into getting arrested in El Paso by another one of Mexico’s biggest drug lords from the Sinaloa cartel. 

  The Los Angeles Times quotes one unidentified law enforcement source saying, “Epic, once-in-a-lifetime caper.”

  The feds this week announced the arrests of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, 76, and Joaquín Guzmán López, 38, son of the notorious “El Chapo” who’s been in US custody for years.

  Investigators are not telling the full story, but reports say Guzmán López duped Zambada into boarding the plane that landed in El Paso where US authorities were waiting to arrest them. If that’s the case, Guzmán López got some kind of deal, but we don’t know what it is.

THE SPIN RACK: California’s biggest wildfire this year burning in northern Butte County has exploded to more than 239,000 acres, destroying scores of buildings and forcing more evacuations. At least 134 buildings have been confirmed destroyed. — An Israeli strike on a school near Deir al-Balah, a city in central Gaza, killed at least 30 Palestinians and injured more than 100, according to the Hamas-run ministry of health. — Pop star Justin Timberlake’s lawyer says he was not drunk when he was arrested driving in Sag Harbor last month and he believes the case will be dismissed. Timberlake had refused a Breathalyzer test.

 BELOW THE FOLD: China won the first gold medal of the 2024 Olympics in the 10-meter air rifle mixed team event. We were surprised to learn that air rifle shooting was one of the combat skills of the ancient Greeks. 

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